Wasteland of the Mind
by J. and J. Hutchisson
Summary: A woman awakes after getting shot in the head to find that she has a strange and sometimes frightening new ability. Now she must set out into the Mojave Wasteland to either use her new ability or find a way to get rid of it. Along the way she'll make friends who are just as lost as she is. Rated M for some violent content and some language.
1. Chapter 1

Melody Frey looked down at her hands. They still shook slightly. Sometimes. She picked up the mirror to look at herself again. Her red hair was cut short, about neck length, and no longer held back. A good portion of it was cut away from where Doc Mitchell had removed the bullet from her brain. The missing hair only slightly marred the softness of her round face and the sharpness of her pointed nose. Her lips hadn't seen lipstick nor had her eyes seen eyeliner in years, ever since she'd become a courier. Melody had found early on that the Mojave heat didn't do any favors to those who wore makeup.

Doc Mitchell had said that she could rest a few days there if she wanted to. Melody got the feeling that the old man was just worried about her. He'd told her that he'd never seen someone survive getting shot in the head before and recommend she take her luck to the Strip the first chance she got.

Three days of lying on a cot, trying to remember who it was that had shot her and trying not to throw up every time she sat up too fast had made her itchy to leave. She remembered a checkered suit, but that was it. The memory of what had been in the package she'd been delivering was a mystery to her as well, even though she knew she had probably looked in it. Melody had always been curious and so she ended up looking into every package she delivered.

A commotion from the door to Doc Mitchell's house drew her attention back to the present. Someone had slammed the door open and was yelling for Doc. The old man hurried toward the door and then reappeared moments later. He and someone else were carrying a woman who was bleeding from almost every inch of her body. Oddly, the woman was still gripping a small canteen.

"What happened, Sunny?" Doc asked.

"Geckos again, out by the wells," the woman responded. Her dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail that brushed against the rifle on her back.

"Geckos?" Doc asked with shock evident in his voice. "Usually its one or two bites. But, _geckos_ did this…" His voice trailed off as they set the woman on the cot next to Melody's.

Melody instinctively pulled her legs up onto the cot and sat cross legged, looking at the badly injured woman. Blood was dripping everywhere and the woman, Sunny, was covered in it as well. Doc Mitchell moved away quickly to get his medical bag. The canteen fell from the woman's hand and rolled to a stop just below where Melody sat. In stark contrast to the woman, her canteen had no blood on it at all. Melody leaned forward to pick it up, not even realizing what she was doing. As soon as her fingers gripped the object and she began to lean back, the world spun and went black.

_Melody was walking along a road, carrying two water buckets and a canteen. But this wasn't Melody. She became aware of the fact that this woman's name was Sasha. For some reason Melody was aware of the surroundings, but couldn't do anything. It was almost as though she was trapped in the woman's mind, though she didn't know why or how._

_Sasha was humming to herself, thinking about Ringo, the man who had come into town yesterday. He was so handsome. None of the men in Goodsprings had his looks. But the frightened way he had talked about his caravan getting hit by Powder Gangers, made her worried that they might follow him here. Sash smiled, thinking that she would follow Ringo anywhere, if he asked her to. It was the scarf, she told herself, that made him look so daring and handsome._

_Sash was still thinking about Ringo when she reached the wells. She filled the canteen first and then tucked it back into her belt. When the woman bent to fill the bucket, Melody could see her face in the reflection. Sasha wasn't pretty enough to be a call girl on the Strip, but she wasn't ugly either. The face looked disturbingly like that of the woman who'd been brought into Doc Mitchell's, only not clawed up and bloody._

_Sasha had one bucket filled and was starting on the second when she heard a noise. It had sounded like a skittering, something moving quickly over the loose soil. Sasha turned around, thinking maybe Ringo had followed her to get water as well. She hoped the dress she had chosen to wear wasn't too dirty._

_Melody knew what was running up behind the woman and tried to scream for her to run, but she made no sound at all._

_Sasha's anticipation at being able to speak to Ringo changed to horror when she saw the three yellow skinned geckos charging her. She managed a scream and swung the half-filled bucket at the first creature. The bucket hit the gecko in the side of the head and sent the creature, which was about the size of a large cat, tumbling away. She tried to swing the bucket again, but the other two geckos were already on her._

_Melody wanted to scream. She could feel each time one of the geckos racked its claws across Sasha's skin. She felt the geckos biting her legs, tearing skin and muscle from them. She could feel the horrified panic that had gripped Sasha's mind as she tried to hit the geckos with her hands, the bucket or anything else available._

_Finally a shot rang out, though Sasha could barely hear it. By that time she was on the ground, barely able to move. The gecko that had just bitten her nose off disappeared in a bloody mess and the other turned toward the sound of the shot. That one took step and then a bullet destroyed its head._

_Melody felt the blood leaving Sasha's body. The pain was almost gone, the woman's body going numb._

_"Sasha! Sasha!" a woman's voice called. Sunny's worried face came into view and then Melody felt her picking Sasha off the ground. "Hang in there! I'll get ya to Doc Mitchell and everything will be okay." Sunny continued to talk to Sasha as she half carried, half drug her to Doc's house. _

_Melody had never felt such pain. Every inch of Sasha's body was mangled and Melody felt every bit of it. She tried many times to scream, just to see if it would release some of the pain, but nothing happened. _

_The world grew darker with every step Sunny took until Melody couldn't see anything. She heard Sunny bang a door open and yell for Doc Mitchell, but everything was fading._

Melody awoke with a start, sitting upright quickly enough to make her head spin. She could still remember the pain, feel the bites and tears of the geckos. She stood from the cot, holding the sides of her head and stumbled around.

"Whoa there!" Doc Mitchell's voice came from the other side of the room. The old man was out of his chair and next to Melody in a flash. He took hold of her, gently but firmly and guided her back to the bed. Melody's head swum as she sat down and she had to use every bit of her strength to keep from vomiting.

"You don't need to be standing up like that, not after what you went through." Doc Mitchell's voice was kind, but stern. He reminded Melody of her grandfather.

She opened her eyes and smiled at Doc. She was about to thank him when she looked past him and saw where the other cot had been. The cot was gone and so was Sasha, but the blood had stained the floor. Melody leaned to the side, trying her best to miss Doc Mitchell and vomited on the floor.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled. Doc had already retrieved a bucket and handed it to her. For an old man he could sure move fast. It took a few moments for Melody to realize that she was crying.

"No need to apologize, this house has seen every kind of mess imaginable. I'd have moved you to another room if I'd realized you were that squeamish. I guess I should have known that after you fainted." Doc shook his head as he looked at the floor. "Poor Sasha," he whispered.

As Melody stared into the bucket, feeling like she needed to vomit again, her head spun. The woman's name was Sasha. Melody had never been to Goodsprings before and hadn't left Doc's house since he had taken the bullet out of her head. She'd never met Sasha, but she knew her. All the things she had seen, everything she had experienced ran through her mind and she wondered why it had happened. If that had been real, what she had seen, what had triggered it?

She felt dizzy and tired. Melody didn't even remember setting the bucket down and laying back on the cot, but sleep came for her and nightmares about Sasha filled it.


	2. Chapter 2

The weight of the Pip-Boy felt odd to Melody. Doc Mitchell had given it to her, saying that she might need it more than him. She didn't really know why he would think that, but she took it and thanked him for it anyway. He'd been so nice to her and dug a bullet out of her head, so the least she could do was accept a gift from him. Walking to the saloon to look for Sunny Smiles and then walking around to the back of it after speaking to her was done in a kind of trance. Melody was still very much on edge after what happened to Sasha. A small part of Melody was still working to convince herself that it was just a dream, that there was no way she could have seen Sasha get attacked by geckos.

That same part of here was saying that she should just leave. Stopping in Goodsprings had obviously not been a very good choice. Getting shot in the head and then seeing… _that_. Seeing wasn't quite the right word since it had felt more like she had experienced it, but she had definitely seen what had happened after.

The trance she had been in vanished as Sunny walked toward her. The woman smiled pleasantly as she walked toward Melody.

"So, Doc Mitchell wants me to teach you how to shoot?" the slightly shorter woman gave a small laugh.

Melody smiled. "He thinks it may keep me from taking another bullet to the head." She reached up and touched the bandage around her head lightly without thinking about what she was doing. Her head still throbbed, but it was at least manageable now.

"Maybe I should teach you how to duck," Sunny said with a laugh. Melody laughed as well. "You see those bottles there? Let's see if you can hit them."

Melody looked where the woman was pointing and saw a few Sunset Sarsaparilla bottles sitting on a fence a short ways from them, behind the saloon. Sunny held out the rifle that had been on her back, with the strap crossing over her chest.

Melody took the weapon and felt its weight. As she looked down at the stock and slowly moving her eyes up the length of the weapon, the world began to fade to black.

_Melody stood in a large room. A few moments passed before she realized that it was a normal sized room, she was just smaller than normal, and the name that came to her mind was Sunny. The back of the chair that sat to her left was only a couple inches shorter than her. Searching her memory, Sunny's memory, Melody realized she was nine. She looked down and saw that she was wearing a dirty shirt that had once been white and a pair of blue jeans. The shadow on the floor made her head look unusually large and a few more moments passed before she realized she was wearing a baseball cap._

_Sunny felt excited and Melody wondered why. The small girl fidgeted, moving her weight from one foot to the other and then back again. A few minutes passed with the girl just standing there, waiting patiently. Melody had time to look around the room. The décor was what you expected to see in a house in the wasteland. The refrigerator was as dirty as Sunny's shirt, several foot lockers sat against the wall, and a counter took up the rest of the wall to the left of the fridge. A table with two chairs sat against the opposite wall which Sunny was standing next to. The door that the small girl was facing was shut, but going through the child's memories Melody knew there was a bedroom with two beds and two more footlockers on the other side of it._

_The door to the bedroom opened and Sunny grinned. The man standing in the doorway was tall, very tall, though Melody knew it was only because she was as short as a child. The man's dark brown hair had begun to gray, but this didn't take away from how he looked. His face was hard, like most people who'd spent their life surviving the wasteland. But when he looked down at Sunny, the man smiled and his face softened. Melody could see love in those dark brown eyes and she felt the overwhelming sense of love and adulation coming from Sunny. In spite of never seeing the man before, Melody almost felt as though she loved him too. She felt as though he were her father as well. The feelings that were coming from Sunny seemed to be infecting Melody's mind._

_"Okay, squirt," the man said. Melody couldn't find his name right away in Sunny's mind. The only thing she found was '_Father_'. "Let's see how good those eyes of yours are." The man put a hand on Sunny's back and the two walked to the door that led outside. Melody noticed for the first time that he held a rifle in his other hand. The rifle looked familiar, though not as old as the one Sunny had handed to her behind the saloon. That memory seemed distant and Melody couldn't even be sure they were the same gun._

_Father led Sunny outside and the two walked for a few minutes away from the little house. Melody wanted to turn around and see what the outside of the house looked like, but Sunny was too excited about where they were going. The girl kept looking up at her dad and smiling when she wasn't looking toward and rocky outcropping near a series of low hills._

_They finally came to a spot that looked like a well-used campsite, complete with a firepit and a few logs to sit on. Several old rusty cans sat on one of the benches and Father led Sunny past them to the foot of the hill. It was difficult for Melody to judge the distance, since everything seemed to be bigger than normal, but she guessed they were about one hundred feet from the cans. _

_Father knelt so that he and Sunny were eye to eye. The man smiled and brushed a rogue strand of hair away from the girl's face. Melody could feel that Sunny was smiling and still as excited as she had been before, if not more so. The man held up the rifle, which looked twice as big as it should have been. Sunny took hold of it, but Father's grip didn't let it go right away._

_"Remember what I told you? Go easy with this. This is a weapon, not a toy. You need to hold it carefully, move it gently. If you jerk it around, you could end up hurting yourself just as easily as someone else."_

_Sunny nodded and Father's grip left the rifle. The full weight of it was heavier than Melody remembered. But those memories were still distant, as if seen through a dirty window at the end of a dark hallway. The small girl eagerly looked toward the cans and raised the rifle to her shoulder. Sunny had been practicing how to hold the rifle, using a stick in place of the actual weapon. She pressed the butt into her shoulder, her small finger found the trigger and she leaned her head slightly so she could see down the sight. Melody tried to help the child, wanting Father to be proud of Sunny just as much as Sunny herself wanted him to be proud of her. But nothing Melody did made any difference. The barrel of the rifle wavered slightly._

_"You can crouch if you need help steadying the gun," the man said from behind her._

_Sunny went down on one knee without taking the rifle from her shoulder. The weapon moved less and then almost didn't move at all when the girl placed her elbow on her knee. Looking down the sight, Melody could see one of the cans and Sunny held her breath. The little girl squeezed the trigger and the weapon kicked back hard as it went off. The girl blinked, Melody cringed at the sound of the shot and both felt pain in Sunny's shoulder. When Sunny opened her eyes again the can was rolling across the ground, away from the log._

_"Great shot!" Father yelled, excitement and pride obvious in his voice. Sunny looked up at him, her smile growing so large that Melody was worried she'd pull a muscle. Father was saying something to Sunny as the girl moved to line up her next shot, but the world around them grew dark for Melody._

Melody blinked a few times, eyes still on the rifle.

"You don't need to be afraid of it," Sunny said from beside her.

Melody looked over at the woman and smiled. "Sorry. It wasn't that, I was just lost in thought." She looked at the rifle again. "This looks a bit… weathered."

Sunny laughed. "You can say it looks old, I won't be angry. Truth is, I mostly hold on to it now because of the memories. My father gave me that gun when I was a girl. Taught me to shoot with it, too."

Melody felt suddenly dizzy, the rifle looked as though it was growing larger right before her eyes. She blinked a few times and the feeling began to go away. Feeling like she needed something to distract her, Melody turned and looked at the bottles. She raised the rifle to her shoulder and looked down the sight. The end of the barrel moved slightly, but it was just enough for to not line up a good shot. Remembering what Sunny's father had told her, Melody dropped to one knee, placed her right elbow on her knee to steady her arm and looked down the sight again. The barrel moved much less. Melody lined the sights up with one of the bottles and squeezed the trigger. The rifle barked and Melody blinked. The kick back into her shoulder didn't hurt as much as she expected. Looking down the barrel still, Melody could see that the bottle was no longer there.

"Good shot," Sunny said with a smile. Melody turned and smiled back. Even though she had only spent a few minutes with her, Melody felt as though she really knew Sunny and had connected with her. Whatever it was that she was _seeing_, she was happy to realize that not all of it would be bad.


End file.
